Hugo Grotius is a name which reminds us of a sadly chequered history, diversified gifts of the highest order, and a strangely piebald and ambiguous creed. We need not allude to the well-known incidents of his eventful career, — the liigh ofiiccs he held in his native country, his connection with the disputes between the Gomariists and the Re- monstrants, the retribution under which he became the victim of that appeal to arms and force which his own party Ijeyond all question had begun, his escape from prison through the ingenious device of his wife, his residence at Paris, and death at Rostock in 1645. He had published a work, "De Satisfactione Christi," designed to refute the errors of Socinianism, but towards the close of his life he prepared a series of anno- tations on Scripture, respecting which it was the charge of Owen that " he left but one place giving testimony clearly to the deity of Christ." Dr Hammond took him to task for misrepresenting the Dutch statesman. Owen, both in the " Vindicife Evangcliccc" and in his "Review of the Annotations," advances overwhelming evidence in support of his assertion. Whether we are to account it morbid candour or indifference to tlie great truths of the gospel, Grotius assuredly emitted a most uncertain sound respecting them. He is claimed alike by Socinians, Arminians, and Papists. The learned Jesuit Peta- vius said prayers for the repose of liis soul ; and Bossuet considered him so near the truth that "it was wonderful he did not take the last step," — that is, connect himself with the Church of Rome, — while he affirms, at the same time, that " he stole from the Church her most powerful proofs of the divinity of Christ." Menage wrote a witty epigram, to the effect that as many sects claimed the religion of Grotius as towns con- tended for the honour of being the birth-place of Llomer. Who would not wish to rank among the abettors of his own tenets a statesman of such vast attainments and versatile ability ? It is enough, however, to make us sympathize with Owen, who only followed the example of all the Protestant divines of Charenton, in repudiating fellow- ship with Grotius, Avlicn we pei'use the epistles of the latter to the Socinian Crellius. See page 638. Is the difference between those Avho hold and those who deny the Godhead of Christ to be made matter of contemptuous aposiopesis, and to be spoken of as " quantilla causa ? " — Ed.
TO THE
EIGHT HONOUEABLE THE COUNCIL OF STATE,
[and]
TO HIS HIGHNESS,
THE ENSUING
VINDICATION OF THE GLOEY AND DOCTRINE OF THE GREAT GOD AND OUR SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST,
WRITTEN UPON THEIR COMMAND,
IS HUMBLY DEDICATED BY ITS UNWORTHY AUTHOR,
J. o.
TO THE RIGHT WORSHIPFUL, HIS REVEREND, LEARXEU, AKD WORTHY FRIENDS AND BRETHREN,
TIIR HEADS AND GOVEENORS OF THE COLLEGES AND HALLS,
WITH ALL OTHER STUDENTS IN DIVINITY, OR OF THE TRUTH WHICH IS AFTER GODLINESS, IN THE FAMOUS UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD.
Op this second address unto you in this kind, whereunto I am encouraged by your fair and candid reception of my former, I desire you would be pleased to take the ensuing account. It is now, as I remember, about a year ago since one JNIr Biddle (formerly a master of arts of this university, by which title he still owns himself) published two little Catechisms, as he calls them, wherein, under sundry specious pleas and pretences, which you will find discussed in the ensuing trea- tise, he endeavours to insinuate subtilely into the minds of unstable and unlearned men the whole substance of the Socinian religion. The man is a person whom, to my knowledge, I never saw, nor have been at all curious to inquire after the place of his habitation or course of his life. His opposition some years since to the deity of the Holy Ghost, and now to that of the Father and Son also, is all that he is known to me by. It is not with his person that I have any contest; he stands or fails to his own master. His arguments against the deity of the Holy Ghost were some while since answered by Cloppenburgh, then professor of divinity at Franeker, in Friesland, since-at rest in the Lord; and, as I have heard, by one in English. His Catechisms also are gone over the seas; whereof farther mention must afterward be made. At their first publishing, complaint being given in by some worthy persons to the Honourable Council against them, as abusive to the majesty and authority of the word of God, and destructive to many important truths of the gospel (which was done without any knowledge of mine), they were pleased to send for me, and to require of me the performance of that work which is here presented unto you. Being surprised with their request, I laboured to excuse my.^elf to the utmost, on the account of my many employments in the university and elsewhere, with other reasons of the like nature, which to my thoughts did then occur. Not prevailing with them, they persisting in their command, I looked on it as a call from God to plead for his violated truth ; which, by his assistance, and according as I had opportunity, I was in general alway resolved to do. Having, indeed, but newly taken off my hand from the plough of a peculiar controversy about the perseverance of the saints, in the following whereof I was somewhat tired, the entrance into the work was irksome and bur- densome unto me. After some progress made, finding the searching into and dis- cussing of the important truths opposed of very good use to myself, I have been carried through the whole (according as I could break off my daily pressing occa- sions to attend unto it) with much cheerfulness and alacrity of mind. And this was the reason why, finding Mr Biddle came short of giving a fair occasion to the full vindication of many heads of religion by him oppugned, I have called in to his assistance and society one of his great masters, namely, Valcntinus Smalcius, and his Catechiiin (commonly called the Racovian), with the expositions of the places